three takes
You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.
“People Get Ready”
Curtis Mayfield, live, England (London), 1988
*****
The Impressions (featuring Curtis Mayfield), 1965
More Curtis Mayfield? Here. Here. Here.
*****
Al Green, live, Washington, D.C., 1983 (Gospel According to Al Green, 1984)
More Al Green? Here. Here. Here.
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lagniappe
radio gems: gospel
Gospel Memories
WLUW-FM
Chicago, Illinois
Saturday, 10-11 a.m. (CST) (archived shows)
The other night I saw these two bands—both are from Africa—at Chicago’s Logan Square Auditorium.
Kenge, Kenge (Kenya), live, Denmark (Roskilde), 2008
*****
Khaira Arby (Mali), live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010
“Haidara”
*****
“Sourgou”
*****
Scribblings from the show (habit picked up reviewing live jazz for the Chicago Reader):
Kenge Kenge’s bass player at the start of their set: “We’ve been in America for the last three months. This is our last show. And we want to have some fun.”
Drum is king.
As much as I appreciate the musical experiences available via the ’net, they’re no substitute for live music. Among the casualties of the technological filtering are bass and drums—this music’s heartbeat.
This stage isn’t a dividing line. It’s porous, readily penetrable in both directions. Those onstage come down and dance; those offstage go up and dance. When everybody’s dancing—onstage, offstage—the performer/audience line dissolves.
African music, live, is a full-body experience: you listen not just with your ears but with your hips, your feet.
If folks aren’t dancing, this music ain’t happening.
Kinetic elegance.
At times the dancers look as if they’re in a trance.
Lightness, buoyancy, drive: this is music that takes you in its arms, lifts you up, carries you away.
three takes
He’s the guy who, early in his career, while an arranger and producer for Curtom Records, brought Baby Huey & the Babysitters to the attention of Curtis Mayfield.
“Little Ghetto Boy” (Donny Hathaway)
take 1
John Legend & The Roots
Live (recording studio), 2010
*****
take 2
Live, New York, 9/23/10
Want more of John Legend & The Roots? Here.
*****
take 3
Donny Hathaway, live, 1972
*****
lagniappe
Donny Hathaway, “The Ghetto,” live, 1970s
*****
Donny Hathaway died in 1979 at the age of 33. He was a casualty of mental illness. Afflicted with severe chronic depression and ultimately diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, he leapt to his death out of a New York City hotel room.
*****
Curtis Mayfield on Donny Hathaway:
To see him there in the studio at about 21 years old, directing all these real big session guys like he’d been doing it for years, was a tremendous sight to see. But he always believed in himself. He always believed in his talent. He wasn’t conceited about it, but he knew he could do anything these guys could do and almost certainly better. I’d have loved to sign him as artist, but it wasn’t to be.
*****
Bassist Christian McBride on Donny Hathaway:
You can tell that he listened to Stravinsky. He listened to Debussy. He was a musician who was the full 360-degree circle.
Mali—one of the poorest countries economically, one of the richest musically.
Amadou & Mariam
Live, Mali (Festival of the Desert), 2010
***
“Dimanche A Bamako,” live (with David Gilmour, guitar), England (Islington), 2009
***
“Welcome To Mali,” “Africa,” live, South Africa (Johannesburg), 2010
Want more? Here.
*****
I saw Amadou & Mariam, like Orchestra Baobob, with my son Alex—last year at Chicago’s Park West.
How far away does Africa seem to Alex?
About as far, I think, as South Carolina seemed to me at 23.
From a small orchestra in Germany to one in Senegal.
Orchestra Baobab, “Utru horas,” live
Here’s a big (23rd) birthday shout-out to my son Alex—with whom I saw these guys a few years ago at Chicago’s (much missed) HotHouse.
crystalline, adj. Clear and transparent like crystal. E.g., Mitsuko Uchida playing Mozart.
Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, KV. 466/Mitsuko Uchida (piano and conducting), Camerata Salzburg, live, Germany (Salzburg), 2001
Part 1 (first movement)
Part 2 (first movement, cont.)
Part 3 (second movement)
Part 4 (third movement)
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lagniappe
I like to make the gestures of the piano concerto, so big and public, much smaller and intimate, as if I were sitting alone or simply dreaming.
—Mitsuko Uchida
Something new to sing in the shower.
Felix del Pilar Perez Castro, “Amor Loco,” Soy Cuba (I Am Cuba, 1964)
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lagniappe
Paul Anka, “Crazy Love” (1958)
*****
In response to yesterday’s clips:
Amen!
two takes
I’m too close to heaven, I just can’t turn around . . .
“Too Close To Heaven”
Brooklyn All-Stars (featuring Hardie Clifton), live, 1989
***
Bessie Griffin, live
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lagniappe
radio gems: gospel
Sinner’s Crossroads
WFMU-FM
Jersey City, New Jersey; Mt. Hope, New York
Thursday, 8-9 p.m. (EST) (archived shows)
One of my all-time favorite radio shows.
*****
reading table
Shelby had been fooled about Florida, but that was okay. She wasn’t the first. She’d imagined a place that was warm and inviting and she’d gotten a place that was without seasons and sickeningly hot. She’d wanted palm trees and she’d gotten grizzly, low oaks. She’d wanted surfers instead of rednecks. She’d thought Florida would make her feel glamorous or something, and there was a region of Florida that might’ve done just that, but it wasn’t this part. It was okay, though. It was something different. It wasn’t the Midwest. It wasn’t a place where you could look around and plainly see, for miles, that nothing worthwhile was going on.
***
“Everybody calls this the real Florida . . . . I don’t understand an expression like that. Is part of the state imaginary?”
—John Brandon, Citrus County (2010)
I’ll take some of whatever he’s having.
Hylton The Whistler Brown, Reggae Radio Show, 2007
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lagniappe
radio gems: sounds of Jamaica (reggae, rocksteady, ska)
Eastern Standard Time
WKCR-FM
New York (Columbia University)
Saturday, 6-10 a.m. (EST) (archived shows)
Career plan for the next life, if tap-dancer and rubboard player don’t pan out: reggae bassist.
Lee “Scratch” Perry, Junior Murvin, The Heptones, The Congos, The Upsetters, “Play On Mr. Music,” live, Jamaica (Roots Rock Reggae [1977]),
